Selected Talk by Michael Lutz, at the European Data Forum 2013, 10 April 2013 in Dublin, Ireland: Data interoperability across sectors and borders – INSPIRE and beyond

1. Data interoperability across sectors and
borders – INSPIRE and beyond
Michael Lutz, Andrea Perego, Robin S. Smith
European Data Forum 2013, 9-10 April 2013, Dublin
www.jrc.ec.europa.eu
Serving society
Stimulating innovation
Supporting legislation

2. Why Europe needs a spatial data
infrastructure (SDI)?
• Natural Disasters and as well as
other environmental phenomena
do not stop at national borders!
• 20% of the EU citizens
(115 million) live within
50 Km from a border
• 70% of all fresh water
bodies in Europe are part of
a trans-boundary river
basin !!

3. Building a European SDI is complex
• Europe is a patchwork of several
countries with different
traditions, cultures and socio-
economic models
• This is reflected in the
different ways in which geo-
spatial data is managed

4. INSPIRE in a nutshell
• Comprehensive data inventory
(Monitoring & Reporting)
• Facilitate data discovery through
standardised discovery services & metadata
(Network Services & Metadata)
• Data sharing (Data and Service Sharing)
• Facilitate data access by allowing
standardised view, download and transformation
(Network Services)
• Facilitate data use and interoperability by
adopting common cross-domain
models to exchange data (Data
Interoperability)

5. INSPIRE thematic scope
Annex I Annex III
1. Coordinate reference 1. Statistical units 11. Area management/
systems 2. Buildings restriction/regulation
2. Geographical grid systems zones & reporting units
3. Soil
3. Geographical names 12. Natural risk zones
4. Land use
4. Administrative units 13. Atmospheric conditions
5. Human health and safety
5. Addresses 14. Meteorological
6. Utility and governmental
6. Cadastral parcels geographical features
services
7. Transport networks 15. Oceanographic
7. Environmental monitoring
8. Hydrography geographical features
facilities
9. Protected sites 16. Sea regions
8. Production and industrial
facilities 17. Bio-geographical regions
Annex II
9. Agricultural and 18. Habitats and biotopes
1. Elevation
aquaculture facilities 19. Species distribution
2. Land cover
3. Ortho-imagery 10.Population distribution – 20. Energy Resources
4. Geology demography 21. Mineral resources
**
Breaking news: Annex II+III amendment approved by INSPIRE Committee on 8/4 ***

6. A collaborative effort
• Transparency and
inclusiveness
• Stakeholder consultations
• Support to Member States on
the implementation
• Extend INSPIRE to and ensure
consistency of different policy
domains
• Promote INSPIRE in
international
standardisation

7. Data interoperability
The starting point …
user user • Access to spatial data in various
ways
... ...
• User has to deal with interpreting
heterogeneous data in
different formats, identify, extract
and post-process the data he
needs
 lack of interoperability
dataset dataset dataset

8. Data interoperability
... and what INSPIRE is
user user
aiming at
• Provide access to spatial data via
... ... network services and according to a
harmonised data specification to
achieve interoperability of data
! Datasets used in Member States may
Network Network Network stay as they are
Service Service Service
! Data or service providers have to
provide a transformation between their
internal data model and the harmonised
data specification
dataset dataset dataset

9. Cross-sector data interoperability
Data from
INSPIRE data other sectors
SD:Species distribution
PD: Population EL:Elevation Waste
Distribution
PRTR
SEVESO
ER:Energy
Urban Planning
US: Utilities and PF:Production and
Resources
Governmental Services
(Waste Management)
industrial facilities
Waste Management
AF:Agricultural and
Plans
aquaculture facilities
Environmental Impact
SO:Soil
Assessment
BU:Buildings
AM:Area management/ restriction/
Risk Management
HB:Habitats and biotopes regulation zones & reporting units
…

10. Key pillars of data interoperability
Conceptual Harmonised
Encoding Registers
data models vocabularies
• objects types, • conceptual • to overcome • provide
properties & models interoperability unique and
relationships independent issues caused persistent
• cross-domain of concrete by free-text identifiers for
harmonization encodings and/or multi- reference to
• standard lingual content resources
• based on a
common encoding: • allow additional • allow their
modelling GML, but also terms from consistent
framework possible to local management
derive other vocabularies and
• managed in a encodings versioning
common UML (e.g. based
repository on RDF)

11. Key pillars of data interoperability
Conceptual Harmonised
Encoding Registers
data models vocabularies
• objects types, • conceptual • to overcome • provide
described in INSPIRE Conceptual Frameworkunique and
properties & models interoperability documents
relationships independent issues caused persistent
• cross-domain of concrete by free-text identifiers for
harmonization encodings and/or multi- reference to
• standard lingual content resources
• based on a
common encoding: • allow additional • allow their
modelling GML, but also terms from consistent
framework possible to local management
derive other vocabularies and
• managed in a encodings versioning
common UMLD2.6:Methodology
(e.g. based
repository
D2.5: Generic on RDF) D2.7: Guidelines
for Specification D2.9: O&M D2.10.3: Common
Conceptual Model Development for Encoding Guidelines data models

12. Conclusions
• Through INSPIRE, public sector data will become
available and interoperable over the next years for
34 spatial data themes
• INSPIRE provides a comprehensive framework for
interoperability of spatial data
• Methods and infrastructure components can be re-
used for data interoperability in other sectors
• INSPIRE data can be combined with other data to
enable cross-sector & cross-border “location-
aware” analyses

13. Next steps
• Pilots for e-Reporting (e.g. air quality)
 Using INSPIRE for enabling access to comparable
near-real-time air quality information
• Re-usable INSPIRE reference platform ARe3NA
 Identify gaps and help sharing re-usable components
– e.g. INSPIRE registry (soon available
on ISA’s JoinUp platform)
• EU Location Framework EULF
 Develop a strategic framework of
standards, case studies , guidelines to realise the potential
of location information in Europe, based on INSPIRE
 facilitating a more aligned approach using location
information in different policy areas
– e.g. Integrated Transport, Smart Cities

14. Thank you … Questions?
• INSPIRE:
http://inspire.jrc.ec.europa.eu/
• ISA programme:
http://ec.europa.eu/isa/
 EULF: http://ec.europa.eu/isa/actions/02-
interoperability-architecture/2-
13action_en.htm
 ARe3NA:
http://joinup.ec.europa.eu/community/are3na/description
Join us at the INSPIRE Conference in
Florence 23-27 June 2013
http://inspire.jrc.ec.europa.eu/events/conferences/inspire_2013/